


Headaches and Heartache

by MaggieMaybe160



Series: Six Pieces to a Boone [2]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kissing, Old World Blues DLC, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Reunions, Scars, Surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:14:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26313988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaggieMaybe160/pseuds/MaggieMaybe160
Summary: Boone and Courier Six attempt to have a first date at a mysterious midnight movie drive-in. It's cut short when Boone is stranded in the Mojave alone without her. Again. When she returns this time, her surgical and psychological scars leave Boone with more questions than answers.
Relationships: Craig Boone/Female Courier
Series: Six Pieces to a Boone [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1911934
Comments: 36
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

The new relationship is just that: new. Boone’s love life hasn’t exactly been stable or sober since Carla died. There were a few one night stands here and there. There had been some hazy nights with people Boone hadn’t thought about since even meeting Six. When she walked into that Dinky watchtower, he should have known his heart was hers. 

Dating is new. He had dated Carla, but that was so long ago, he barely remembers it. He remembers being married to her. He remembers scooping her off her feet in New Vegas and filling the Mojave with her laughter as he kissed her. But he doesn’t remember dates. He was deployed for a lot of it. They wrote letters. They met up when he could. They had barely any dating time before they had decided to get married. 

He wants to do things right with Six. They’ve done everything else together. They’ve traveled all over the Mojave. They’ve fought together, run away together, eaten together, and cuddled up to sleep together. They even got separated and reunited. He’d survived her PTSD attack after her return from the Sierra Madre. She’d survived all of it. They’d even finally fucking talked about their feelings and had the best sex of Boone’s life. Now, he wanted to take her on a date. 

Once upon a time, he might have taken her to the Ultra Lux. You know,  _ before _ he found out it was run by cannibals and he and Six had killed all the White Glove Society freaks. He could cook her a fancy meal at the 38? But he always cooked for her when they were at home. 

Boone sighs and reaches his hand down to where Rex is lying on the floor beside the bed. Six is out with Arcade to check in on Lily. She should be back soon and when she does, he hopes he can ask her out on a real date. If he can fucking think of one thing that doesn’t involve food. 

“Come on,” he mutters, getting up and walking into the kitchen. He turns on the new radio they got after she was finally able to listen to one without breaking down. Some slow jazz music plays as he looks through the fridge. His head hurts a little, a low ache he’s used to from not enough sleep or not enough water. He grabs the things to make a steak after gulping down a bottle of purified water. It doesn’t help. 

The voices of the radio hosts crackle to life as the song ends and Boone thinks about changing the channel, but his hands are busy with cooking and Rex hasn’t mastered the art of not tearing the radio apart when he tries to turn the knob yet, so he leaves it. 

“Have you ever been to see a movie?” one voice asks. Boone huffs. No one has seen a movie that wasn’t propaganda meant to keep everyone locked up in their vaults since Pre-War. “Come on down to the Mojave Drive-in for a Midnight Science-Fiction Feature!” A movie? Boone hadn’t heard of a movie being played anywhere since everyone went into their vaults. 

Boone washes his hands and turns off the radio, his head pounding with what was sure to be a migraine if he didn’t find some med-x or something. He leaves the steak on the stove as he walks to the bathroom where Arcade had fully stocked their first aid kit. He injects the med-x and blinks as the headache fades away. 

Boone waits up for Six, drinking only a single glass of whiskey. He hates that Sunset Sarsparilla stuff. It has a weak flavor and a piss poor excuse for alcohol content. 

Rex is asleep on his feet. He had never wanted a dog. He had told Six when they took Rex from the King to go help cure his terminal problems that they were not, under any circumstances, keeping this dog. They kept the dog. It didn’t take long for Boone to go from swearing when Rex got underfoot to giving him a scratch behind the ear and calling him a good boy after every monster they killed. Now it was Boone who Rex curled up with when they were lounging around the 38. 

He hadn’t been here after the Sierra Madre. Six had wanted to check out where that broadcast was coming from and somehow they had ended up leaving Six and Ed-E with Arcade like an underpaid babysitter. Now that they’ve made it back, Ed-E doesn’t leave Arcade’s side and Rex refuses to leave Boone’s. 

“I’m home,” Six calls. Rex jumps up immediately as if he hadn’t just been dreaming, chasing imaginary legionaries and fiends. “Rex!” 

“Welcome home,” Boone says, following after their dog to the elevator that Six has barely stepped out of. 

“Ignore me. Wait for me to leave before you start with the intimacy, please,” Arcade says, stepping into the main hall. Boone rolls his eyes and Six laughs before draping her arms over his shoulders and pulling him in for a kiss. “This is truly disgusting. I’m leaving.” 

“Go,” Six murmurs against Boone’s lips, waving her hand at Arcade to shoo him. Her lips are sweet and warm. She melts into Boone’s arms and molds against his body. “I missed you.” 

“Can I take you on a date?” Boone asks back, their lips still touching but barely. 

“A date?” She raises an eyebrow.

“Yes. A date.” This time she grins as she nods. “There’s a movie playing out in the Mojave.” 

“Okay. Tomorrow. Bed now,” she says before kissing him roughly and hopping up into his arms, her legs tight around his waist. He walks into their bedroom with her safe in his arms and kicks the door shut behind him. 

“Wait. The big screen in the middle of nowhere?” Six asks. Boone is only a little lost. The invitation on the radio hadn’t exactly been clear on where they were going. He stops and looks at her. When had she seen a screen in the middle of nowhere? 

“What?” 

“Follow me,” she says, grabbing his hand and pulling him along. “I found a weird place a long time ago. It was a few days before I found Novac.” Before she found Boone. “I was there during the day, though. There was a big screen and a thing, but I didn’t think much of it and left.” Definitely sounded like it was the place. 

They used to walk with him several paces behind her, electricity building and charging in the gap between them the longer they traveled together. Now his hand is clasped in hers, fingers locked as she keeps her fast pace. He never stops scanning for danger, though. He’s been protecting her since he left Novac with her a year ago. He hopes to never stop. 

“What time is it?” Boone asks as they approach the screen. 

She glances at her pip-boy. “Ten thirty.” 

They take a seat in the warm dirt and she presses against his side. It’s almost the same as it was before when they would stop to rest during their adventures but now he can wrap his arm around her and press a kiss to her cheek. 

“I love nights like this,” she sighs happily. “Perfect temperature. Perfect company.” She leans into him. “I love you.” 

He’ll never get tired of hearing her say it. He wonders how he went so long without telling her. He should have been telling her every single day. “I love you too.” 

They’re almost as bad as teenagers again. When he kisses her and she responds with her immediate and heated kisses, there’s no stopping. Not when she clutches him to pull him closer. Not when he pins her to the ground and feels her fingers twine with his. 

“Boone,” Six says, lifting her head. He sits up and looks over his shoulder. The screen has lit up. Nothing is playing yet, but it should only be about eleven now. She sits up and puts her beret back on from where it had fallen in the dirt. “How did it turn on?” 

“I don’t know. A timer, maybe?” He’s not really curious, but she is. He follows her over to the projector that’s spewing light without images. “It will probably start at midnight.”

“I just want to look,” she says with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. That’s never good. He looks up at the screen to watch her super-sized shadow hand hover there. “That’s strange,” she mutters. 

“What?” He turns to look back at her in time for the world to slip through his fingers, his vision going black before he hits the ground. 

Boone wakes up with her name in his mouth and his heart slamming out of his chest. He sits up quickly and sways. She’s not in the room he’s currently in. Not again. He can’t lose her again. “Six!” He screams. 

“Whoa!” Manny opens the door, his eyes wide with alarm. “You’re awake!” 

“Where am I? Where’s Six?” Boone gets up and looks around the room. It’s his old room at Novac. The one with the pills still lined up on the bathroom counter. The one with a bloodstain on the carpet. The one he had refused to walk back into since he and Six walked out of Novac for the first time. His stomach lurches from the violent memories in this room. He doubles over and empties his stomach in the corner of the room and Manny takes a step back. 

“Did she leave again?” Manny asks, the bitter edge to his voice undeniable. It reminds Boone why they fell apart after he’d met Carla. 

“How am I here?” Boone asks instead of answering as he wipes his mouth on the back of his hand. If Six isn’t here, she’s gone again. He can feel his heart shattering in his chest again. He tries to walk out the door but Manny stays where he is right in front of it. 

“Hey, man. I think you should take it easy. The traveling merchants found you out in the desert by that weird projector that doesn’t work and they brought you back with them. She wasn’t there. She might have just left.” 

“Move,” Boone says, not bothering to answer. He knows what Manny’s next words will be before he says them and he doesn’t want him to say them. 

“You should let her go.” 

Boone punches him, his knuckles cracking across his jaw. It hurts a little, but mostly it’s just satisfying. Manny grabs his face and tests his jaw to make sure it’s not broken as Boone walks out of his cursed room. 

They had been near Nipton when she led him to the drive-in. He could get there again. He doesn’t know what his plan is. If she’s gone with her things strewn about the desert again, he won’t just sit still and wait for her again. He could track her maybe. There could be clues. He could watch the movie and see if it tells him anything. He can’t just let her go and disappear for another two weeks. 

When Boone gets there, the screen is flickering with light, but there is no movie. There’s no one and nothing. It’s not like when she went to the Sierra Madre and he had collected her favorite weapons and trinkets from the dirt. There was nothing left. Even her boot prints had been wiped away with the wind. 

Boone checks the time and finds it’s almost midnight. He sinks down and waits for the movie to start if there is one. Pictures flash, but there’s nothing cohesive and the sound isn’t coming through. Boone sits there with tears running down his cheeks until the projector turns off at three in the morning. Why is it always Six? Why can’t he protect her when she needs him? Why can’t he do a single damn thing when she gets taken from right under his fingertips? 

“How was your date?” Arcade calls when Boone trudges into the Presidential Suite. “Don’t answer that actually. I don’t think I want to know. You’ve been gone for days.” 

“Four days and ten hours,” Boone corrects him flatly. “It wasn’t a date.” He wouldn’t count it as a date no matter how happy they had been just before she vanished into thin air. 

“Don’t tell me you two have gone back to the  _ will they won’t they _ phase of the relationship. I don’t think anyone is prepared to handle that again.” Arcade comes out of his room and his face falls when he sees that Six is missing. “Where…?”

“She’s gone.” Rex comes running in and barrels into Boone. “You research shit, right?”

“I… do.” Arcade is usually not one to answer with so few words. “Craig, what’s going on?”

“I need you to look at a fucking projector and figure out where the fuck Six is,” Boone says, crouching down to pet Rex. 

“I usually examine  _ people _ and related ailments— Alright, alright. I’m coming. Let me grab my gun.” He changed his tune as soon as Boone had fixed him with an icy glare. He wasn’t going to lose Six again. 


	2. Chapter 2

“It’s a projector,” Arcade says. “I don’t know what to tell you, Craig. There’s nothing here. What did she do to it? Did you two get hit by a pulse grenade? You said you passed out.” 

“It wasn’t a pulse grenade.” He’s been in a pulse grenade field before. They sure as hell didn’t feel good, but that wasn’t what hit them. “She was just looking at it. My head hurt, but I had a headache the day before too. Then she was gone.” 

“Why am I even here? We don’t like each other.” 

“We both love Six,” Boone says, stopping his futile search for any bootprints. “And we both know I’m not smart enough to look at that shit and see anything other than a projector.” 

Under normal circumstances, Arcade wouldn’t pass up the chance to take shots at Boone’s lacking intelligence or education, but right now he only makes a sad sound and looks back at the projector. Boone watches him push his glasses up as he leans in, trying to see what’s different, trying to save Six. 

By the time Boone and Arcade made it back to Novac so they could sleep, Boone was practically carrying him. They had spent all day out there with nothing to show for it. Arcade stopped and looked up at the dinosaur as they started through the gates. 

“Come on,” Boone says through his teeth. 

“Is this where she found you?” 

“Yes. Come on.” He eyes Manny’s room. Six always sleeps on a mattress in Manny’s room, complaining that it’s so much easier to crash there instead of walking all the way up the one flight of stairs. The next room over is his own room and he won’t even let Six in there. 

“You want me to walk  _ up the stairs _ at this hour?” Arcade protests. 

“God, you sound just like her.” Boone doesn’t let up and eventually, Arcade drags his feet up the steps. Boone unlocks the room and sighs. It’s the same as last time he stayed here, except it feels a little less like hers than it did before. She calls the 38 _ their  _ home. She calls her room at the 38  _ their _ room and that’s  _ their _ bed. Here, it’s just a bed in a room on the top level of a crappy motel. 

Arcade crashes on the bed and says something that gets muffled in the pillows. Boone furrows his brow but stays in the doorway for a moment as he watches Arcade kick his shoes off the edge of the bed and lazily put his plasma gun on the side table without removing his face from the pillows. 

“I’ll be in the dinosaur,” Boone says. Arcade grunts. 

The dinosaur was never meant to become a home. It was supposed to be work. It was where he shot down the waste of the wasteland and hunted down the bitch that sold Carla. But then it was where he met Six. And then it was where he searched for Six when she went missing. And it was where he made love to her and held her in his arms. 

Boone curls up on the floor and pulls out his Dinky toy that Six had given him. The thing is truly ugly. He hugs it anyway. It was supposed to be just for a moment, but then his arms wind tighter and his shaking stops. He hadn’t even noticed he had been shaking until now. A tear slips down his cheek but then he falls asleep. 

“I can handle myself, Craig,” Arcade protests for the millionth time. “I don’t need a bodyguard to walk home.” 

“It’s a long walk,” Boone says. He will never not be irritated that Arcade insists on calling him Craig, but it’s not the fight he wants to have right now. 

“You’re going to scare off potential suitors,” Arcade announces. It makes Boone snort. Not really a full laugh. It’s more a sound made from trying not to laugh than anything. 

Boone lifts his sniper and shoots a gecko that’s coming right at them. “Oh. Sorry. Was that future Mr. Gannon?” 

“Could have been if you didn’t shoot him. Who knows? He could have been racing here to confess his undying love for me. Not likely, but you never know. I also happen to have my own gun.” He keeps talking, but Boone tunes him out, following him back toward New Vegas like he used to with Six. 

He hopes she doesn’t come back while he’s gone. He hopes he’s right where she needs him to be when she turns up. He has to force himself to keep saying  _ when _ instead of  _ if _ .  _ When _ she comes back. He clenches his jaw as he thinks about how scared she had been last time. The bruises from the bomb collar and that damn jumpsuit that he burned in the tub. 

Any other time, Boone would have let Arcade walk back on his own. But the fact that Boone couldn’t keep Six safe hurt. If he couldn’t keep her safe, he had to keep the people she loved safe while she was gone so she came back to the family she had created. No one could be missing. Everyone had to be in one piece. That meant he would follow Arcade back to the Old Mormon Fort or the 38 to make sure he wasn’t stung by cazadors, attacked by fiends looking for chems, dismembered by geckos, or turned into pulp by nightkin. 

“You’re not even listening to me. I told you I’m boring,” Arcade says. 

“You’re annoying,” Boone corrects him. This really is a long walk. 

Back and forth across the desert. He’s used to it and his muscles have long since learned to stop complaining about it, but he’s tired. He’s exhausted when he gets back to the flickering screen and there’s still no sign of Six. He has nowhere to go to search for her. He has no one who knows anything about this place or who could have taken her. He has nothing. 

He only knows that he waits two full nights out there watching the screen because he watches the three-hour nonsensical flickering of images twice before finally pulling himself back up and walking away. It must have been four in the morning by the time he headed back toward Novac. He told himself he’d rest there before walking back to the 38 and going back to work as a bodyguard for Freeside travelers to wait for Six. 

“Hey, man,” Manny says as Boone walks through the gates. 

“Fuck off.” Boone walks past him and goes up the stairs, locking the door behind him before climbing into bed. 

To pay for his random comings and goings, Boone decides to help out around Novac a little. He’s not stalling, waiting for Six to show up. He’s not even thinking about how it’s been ten days since she vanished. He’s just paying for his room. 

He helps with some of the brahmins, gritting his teeth when he’s asked where he learned to be so good with them. He grew up on a farm and would never grow out of it. He helped repair a broken wheel on a traveling merchant’s cart. He worked all day and retired in the mouth of a dinosaur, promising himself that he would leave in the morning. 

He can’t sleep. He sits on the floor with the dinosaur in his lap as he looks out at the stars. His chest is tight with worry and the beginnings of the panic he’s been biting down. If he lets his mind go there, he’ll be as much of a mess as he was after Bitter Springs… after Carla… He can’t go back to the alcoholic self-medicating or the suicidal tendencies or the PTSD flashbacks and nightmares. His hands clench into fists as he reminds himself how far he’s made it. He can handle this. He forces himself to breathe. 

The doorknob turns and Boone’s head whips. He usually hears footsteps on the stairs before anyone ever makes it to the door. He shoves Dinky back into his pack and gets ready to tell Manny to get the fuck out before he punches him again. 

“Boone!” Six throws her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder. He hugs her tight, unsure if he’ll ever let her go. She’s not trembling with fear this time. She’s not wide-eyed and silent. She’s here in his arms. 

“Six,” is all he can say. 

But she’s not wearing his gray shirt or his pants that are too big for her that she keeps cinched with his belt too tight. She’s in armor that he’s never seen before. There’s no red x on her back. 

“ _ Staring combat,”  _ a robotic high voice says. Boone jerks away. “ _ Just kidding _ !” 

“Sorry. Just MK,” Six says, fidgeting with her gloves. 

“Is that a scar?” Boone’s stomach drops as he lifts her chin and pulls her beret off. There’s a thin scar that looks like… Brain surgery? 

“It’s fine.” She brushes him off and takes her hat back selfconsciously. “I got my brain and heart back, so it’s fine.” 

“I’m sorry, what?” 

“Can we talk about this later?” Her eyes are pleading and as much as he wants to talk about it now, he can’t push it right now. He nods and she hugs him again, curling against him and taking a deep breath. “I’m so glad I’m home.” 

“Me too,” he whispers. No matter how happy he is that he’s holding her again, his heart is sinking with dread, his stomach filled with rocks and butterflies at the same time. All he wanted was one date. 


	3. Chapter 3

Six had fallen asleep in his arms in the mouth of the dinosaur. Around dawn, he had scooped her up and carefully carried her to her room on the second story of the motel. When he looks down at her sleeping face, all he can think of is that it’s his fault she got hurt this time. The Sierra Madre was different. She had heard the radio signal and she had wanted to investigate it. This time it was all on him. He’d wanted to take her for a date and wound up walking her straight into a trap that he couldn’t see. 

“I’ll miss you,” the suit whispers as Boone starts to take it off of Six. His nose wrinkles and he holds it out, examining it. He drops it on the floor and looks back to Six. 

She’s in nothing but her bra and underwear. Usually, the sight would leave him aching for her, but it’s the same as last time she returned from a vast unknown. He doesn’t have to check hard for any markings. Her chest has an unmistakable surgical scar running straight down the middle. Heart surgery. 

“What did they do to you?” Boone whispers. There’s no point repeating her words that they had returned her brain and heart without hearing the rest of the story, but he can’t help it. How is she alive? How does she always manage to come back to him alive? 

He sits on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. He hates this feeling. This feeling of guilt and uselessness swirling together in his gut like beer and whiskey. 

She makes a soft noise and rolls over in her sleep, reaching for him and draping her arm over his lap, her face smashing against his hip. He smiles a little and takes one of his hands to gently run it over her short hair. His finger keeps going, his eyebrows creasing with worry as he traces a third scar that travels down the length of her spine. 

“Fuck.” He closes his eyes and clenches his jaw, his heart sick. 

He tries to sleep. He really does. He lies down beside her and wraps his arms around her carefully. He breathes her in and tries to force his heart to return to an unpanicked rhythm. He counts her breaths instead of sheep. But Boone can’t sleep. His mind is still wondering what else is wrong.

He sits up, not really sure how long he had tried to sleep for. It could have been five minutes or five hours. Either way, he abandons it and goes to find her pack, hoping he won’t find any black sludge or new addictions. 

There’s a new gun that looks more high tech than anything she’d ever used before. The glowing axe he pulls out looks severe. He can’t find some of her other weapons. She’d had her caravan shotgun with her when she left, hadn’t she? Where is her service rifle? He pulls out a rumpled patient gown that’s darkened with dried blood. It makes his stomach flip, but he keeps going. Her bottlecaps are low. He isn’t counting them, but she sure as shit had more than what she has now. When he had helped her out of her suit, he’d also taken her ballistic fist off. It was one of the weapons she’d always carried but never used. He frowns. She has more stimpacks than when she left. There had been seven before and now she had eleven, but all of her med-x is gone. The chems she said she’d never take unless she had to are gone too; the steady, buffout, jet, psycho. Her mentat supply has skyrocketed though. 

There is no black sludge. No weird foggy jars. No bomb collar bruises. Just those damn surgery scars and all of his burning questions. The top of his list was who the fuck did this so he could kill them himself. 

Six wakes up and looks a little confused. She looks around the room as if she doesn’t quite recognize it before her eyes land on Boone. She smiles and whispers a cute, “Hey you.” 

“Hey.” 

Boone walks back to the bed and sits down so she can cuddle against him again and she does. He holds her gently, very afraid that somehow he’ll hurt her. 

“It’s nice to be back,” she hums. 

“Where were you?” He kisses the top of her head to take the edge out of his tone. He needs answers before taking her out there and watching the after-effects of whatever just happened to her. 

“Big Mountain.” She clears her throat and sits up again, not meeting his eye. 

“What happened, Six?” 

He watches her grab his gray shirt from her pack and pull it over her head, hiding two of the three scars. “I don’t know. I don’t know where to start this conversation.” She yanks on the pants and pulls the belt tight. 

“At the beginning if there is one.” 

She looks up at him finally and she sighs, invisible weights added to her shoulders. “I don’t know what happened or how I got there. I was with you and then I was standing on a balcony in the middle of nowhere in a hospital gown. I don’t fucking know.” She pulls the ballistic fist on like it’s part of her morning routine now. “The brains in jars had taken my spine, heart, and brain. I already told you I got my brain and heart back.” 

“They  _ took _ your brain, heart, and spine?” Boone repeats. She nods and puts her beret on. “What happened to your spine? How are you alive right now?” 

“They replaced everything with other things.” She waves her hand vaguely like the details aren’t as important as they very clearly are. “I like this spine better. I just wanted my own heart and my own brain.” 

“Six…”

“I had to do a bunch of these tests and it was just so fucked up. There were other lobotomites, but they were a little more brainless than me. I know I can handle myself out there, but I missed having you there to spot me.” 

“I would have been there if I could.” He’d tried. He’d looked into the projector too. He’d looked for bootprints. He’d dragged Arcade out to try to find her. “How did you get back?” 

Six holds up a weird gun he hadn’t noticed before. “Transportalponder,” she says like it’s a real word before shrugging and tossing it back into her pack. “What happened while I was gone?” 

“Arcade and I tried to find you.” It sounds as pathetic as it had felt but she grins. 

“You and Arcade worked together? Why couldn’t I have been here to see that?” 

She doesn’t want to talk about it. She refuses to give details. Every time he gets close, asking questions about how brains had somehow extracted her organs, what the tests she had to do included, or how she was still alive she would change the subject back to him. 

“Rex misses you,” Boone says, finally giving up on getting any answers that make sense. He’ll have to try to get her to see Arcade about the surgeries. She doesn’t answer, her hand tightening on his a little for a moment. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She forces a smile and gives his hand a reassuring squeeze that is anything but reassuring. Six can talk her way out of anything. She can talk her way to finding peace between two warring races that she has nothing to do with. She can talk her way into and out of everything that comes at her, but she doesn’t even try right now. She just lets her fake smile dip into a grimace before both are gone, leaving a tired and flat expression with sad eyes. 

Boone has never been one for talking. He can never find the right words and finds more comfort in silence because of it. There’s a lot that can be communicated without words. He can show how much he cares with his protection or by holding her hand. He can tell her he loves her by nuzzling against her neck, kissing her, holding her. He can tell everyone else how little patience he has for them, how much hate he’s built up for them with a bullet or two, a glare, or a clenched jaw. Six communicates more than she knows with her evasions, her eyes that scan for predators, and her forced smiles that continue to slip. 

“What the fuck are you doing?” Boone asks as Six starts ripping apart the corpse of a radscorpion he’d just shot. There’s nothing to gain but poison glands and she’s never bothered with those. And she still isn’t judging by how she just tossed one over her shoulder at him. He sidesteps it and shakes his head. At least this is better than bashing the skulls in of every person like last time. 

“No energy cells,” she sighs, getting up and wiping her hands on her pants. Boone grimaces at the gross smears left behind. 

“There wouldn’t be.” 

“Right.” She laughs a little and glances at the corpse. “Roboscorpions are bright yellow and shoot lasers. The difference should be obvious... It’s just an easy source of ammo. Habit.” 

She’s always more violent when she comes back. Her fighting style changes drastically each time. She’s gone for days and comes back haunted, repeating her new behaviors until she’s broken of them. He thinks about it as if this has happened more than twice, but two times is two times too many. 

“Hey. What’s up?” Arcade asks like he saw Six earlier that day instead of over a week ago. 

“Nothing. I need to take a shower. My brain told me I smell disgusting.” Arcade and Boone exchange a confused look. Before she leaves, Rex comes running into the room and Six flinches. 

“Sit,” Boone says before he jumps on her. Rex plants his butt down in front of her, his tail still wagging hard enough to make his entire body wiggle. 

“Hey, boy,” she says in a relieved sigh, petting him with the wrong hand. She presses a kiss to his snout, quickly dodging his tongue as she pulls away. “Shower.” And she walks away. 

“Craig?” 

Boone ignores him, scratching behind Rex’s ear and trying not to think about the way Six’s fist had balled when Rex had come running. 

“She’s okay, isn’t she?” Arcade presses. 

“I don’t know.” 


	4. Chapter 4

“Quiet now, fucker?” Boone hears Six shout in the kitchen as he comes out of the bathroom. Arcade is standing in the hallway looking into the kitchen with his hand over his mouth as he laughs quietly. “Piece of shit. Did you lose your fucking personality tape again? Not fucking scared of you, lord of terror.” 

Boone looks into the kitchen and watches her pick up the toaster as she continues to swear at it, taunting it with promises of nuclear warfare. “Six?” 

She jumps and looks over her shoulder. “This isn’t my toaster,” she says, suddenly putting down the inanimate yet possibly still humiliated toaster. 

“Do tell about this foul-mouthed  _ lord of terror _ ,” Arcade says, finally walked into the kitchen and taking a seat at the table. 

“Oh. He’s just some asshole who wanted to end the world, watch it burn to the ground, and liked to superheat my weapons for me,” she says quietly. “The other personalities probably killed him by now anyway…” She shoves bread in the toaster and sits down next to Boone and across from Arcade. 

Her hand finds Boone’s on his knee and their fingers slide together like they’ve always done this. Like they’ve always sat side by side at this table and held hands. It lights Boone’s heart on fire, but outwardly he doesn’t move or change expressions. 

“There was one personality I think you would have liked,” she says to Arcade, opening up a little. Neither of them want to deter her from this. It’s been two days since they returned from Novac but she still hasn’t let Arcade examine her and this is the first time she’s said anything about Big Mountain. 

“Oh? How many personalities did this toaster have? Are any of them single?” Arcade puts his chin in his hands as he leans forward on the table. Six laughs and the sound is precious. It’s been hard to come by since her return and Boone clings to the sound. It looks like Rex does too. He’s not allowed in the kitchen, but his tail beats against the floor where he’s sitting at the door. 

“The other personalities in the Sink,” she corrects but it doesn’t make any more sense than a toaster having multiple personality disorder. “There was a biological research station that was very sexual and begging to be filled with someone's seed.” 

“Ugh. Me,” Arcade says, leaning back in his chair again. “What other personalities were there?” 

He’s been saying less to leave space for Six to finally start telling them everything. Usually, he would go on for days. Boone had thought he would enjoy a quiet Arcade. He was wrong. Arcade is only quieter when something’s wrong. 

“The light switches— there were two— hated each other. I think they were both involved with the jukebox. I liked the light switch for my bedroom. She was bitter, but she was a sweetheart. The bitch was in the other room. I didn’t believe my bedroom light switch about her until I met her. If she had had a nose, it would have been stuck up in the clouds.” 

The toaster pops and Arcade gets up to plate it for Six. “Do continue. I’m just preparing your food like a servant.” She rolls her eyes with a small laugh but she does continue. 

“The autodoc was nice. I thought he’d be judgemental when I got addicted to steady—” She cuts herself off abruptly like she choked on something mid-sentence. She thinks she’s said too much. Boone’s stomach flips but he forces his hand not to tighten on hers or his jaw to clench or his eyes to give him away even behind his sunglasses. 

Arcade’s eyes flicker from Six to Boone but it’s too quick and Six isn’t looking at him, her eyes on the table in front of her. Isn’t this where Arcade chimes in with some over the top remark? Please, for the love of God just say something. 

Arcade clears his throat and puts the plate of buttered toast in front of her before taking a seat again. “Were there others? A vacuum perhaps?” 

“The only cleaner was the sink. She was something.” Six picks at her toast. She’s lost her appetite. Again. She hasn’t been hungry and she hasn’t wanted to talk. The second she’s willing to do both, she crossed some invisible line she’d set for herself and lost her stomach. “She just wanted to purify everything.”

“Well, she sounds lovely. Can we install her in the sinks here? Too many people come in with radiation poisoning from trying to drink tap water around here,” Arcade sighs. 

“She would probably scream if she saw the state of New Vegas and the rest of the Mojave,” Six says with a smirk. “Muggy was a little underfoot, but I think he’d like it here more than Big Mountain.” 

“Why?” Arcade keeps asking about the personalities but Boone wants to skip over it all and ask about the surgeries, the brains in tanks, the  _ lobotomites _ . Arcade is better at this though so he stays quiet and rubs his thumb over her hand. 

“He was programmed to be obsessed with mugs, lustfully so. But there aren’t any humans over there using mugs for him to clean. There’s just think tanks and robots.” She pulls the crust off of her toast and takes a bite from it. Boone exhales, not having realized how he’d been waiting for her to eat with literally bated breath. 

“Think tanks sound interesting…” Arcade ventures. His eyes flicker to Boone again as if they were a team working on getting the story from her. It would be fine for her to keep it to herself if it wasn’t impacting everything else. 

Six eyes him, her lips pressed together. Boone watches as she considers telling Arcade more. Her hands are occupied with her toast now, but Boone has his hand on her knee, a promise that he’s here for her no matter how far away her mind is. 

“I didn’t kill them if that’s what you’re asking,” she says defensively. 

“I wasn’t, but it’s nice information to have about beings I have never met nor heard anything about, I suppose.” He stands and goes to the fridge. There’s no way he can’t feel the daggers in his back from Six’s gaze. “Whiskey?” he offers Boone. 

Boone nods and even though Arcade isn’t looking, he still grabs two glasses and pours. 

“I don’t know why you want to talk about this so badly,” Six finally snaps. “I have my brain back. I have my heart back. I’m back in New Vegas.”

“You’re heart and brain never should have gone missing or been removed at all. Or your spine, really. I’m shocked you managed to survive at all. And here you are, walking and talking like you didn’t undergo multiple major surgeries and transplants.” 

“Dr. Dala did my spine and heart surgeries.” Her mouth twists with distaste and she shoves her plate of food away from herself. “She called me  _ teddy bear _ and got off on watching me.” 

So that’s why she’d torched all of her collected teddy bears. She had given them all to Ed-E to take outside before taking her incinerator and blasting them into oblivion on the front steps of the 38 before walking back inside like nothing had happened. 

“Dr. Mobius had my brain. He’s the one who sent the other lobotomites after me. He’s the one who sent the cyberdogs, the roboscorpions, the robots I’ve never seen before. He’s the one who attacked me relentlessly until I left with my brain.” 

She’s biting every word. The information is spilling now with all of her anger, hurt, and fear. His chest feels tight as he listens to her. He knows it’s his fault. He shouldn’t have brought her there. He shouldn’t have let her look into the projector. They could have stayed on the ground and made love under the stars and laughed that they’d missed the movie before going home. He couldn’t protect her out there and this time she was alone. Her friends from Sierra Madre weren’t there to have her back. They weren’t there to talk to her. She was alone and she was afraid. And it was all his fault. 

“Dr. Borus and Dr. Zero were assholes. At least Borus had a heart somewhere, but it belonged to a demon dog he’d turned into a monster with chem-laced dog chow. I had to kill his fucking dog. Is that what you want to hear? That I killed someone's beloved pet and delivered his dog dish to the mourning motherfucking owner afterward? Because I didn’t want to kill any of them. I didn’t want to kill dogs that looked just like Rex. I didn’t want to be attacked by them until I was out of stimpacks. I didn’t want to tell a brain in a jar that I’d killed his pet.” She’s crying and gripping Boone’s hand so hard he can feel her nails digging into his palm. He squeezes back, his eyes stuck on the tears that are slipping down her cheeks. 

“I liked Dr. Eight, but we weren’t friends. We didn’t even speak the same language. But he didn’t experiment on me. He didn’t do anything to me. He’d been attacked too. And everyone tried to shut him up. They talked over him and about him. But maybe if he’d had the correct voice modules, he could have been just as bad as everyone else.” She takes a ragged breath and continues. “I don’t give a fuck about Dr. Klein. He can eat a dick and drown in mentats. I don’t give a fuck. He wants to steal a body and get out of there? Fuck him.” 

Six crumples into Boone’s chest and sobs. He wraps his arms around her and looks over at Arcade who looks, for the first time, at a loss for words. He feels her grip the front of his shirt. He only holds her tighter. Arcade raises his eyebrows in a worried expression that’s really just a question asking if they’re alright. Boone nods and watches Arcade leave the room, giving her privacy. 

It’s the middle of the night when Boone wakes up because Six sits up. She’s only wearing his shirt and her underwear. She hasn’t taken off her shirt to hide her scars. He can’t see her in the dark, but he can feel her sitting on the edge of the bed for a few minutes before she stands up. He listens to her bare feet move through the suite. 

“Arcade?” he hears her whisper. 

There’s a groan before, “Six?” 

“Am I okay?” she asks. It breaks his heart. Boone sits up but he doesn’t turn on the light or go to her. 

“Let me check.” There’s a click as Arcade or Six turns on the light in Arcade’s room. It spills into the hallway, giving a soft light to the previously pressing darkness. 

_“Am I okay?”_ _Boone had slurred. He’d blinked slowly. He was alive and he was soaking wet._

_ “Yeah, because I saved your dumb ass,” Manny had said harshly. That’s when Boone had realized he was in the bathtub. There was puke all down the front of his shirt and Manny must have sprayed him with the shower.  _

_ “Just let me die!” Boone had yelled before throwing up again.  _

Boone swallows hard and pats the bed urgently. Rex is supposed to be a guard dog, but when he crawls into Boone’s lap and presses into him, the flashbacks fade and Boone can breathe again. He buries his hands in the thick fur and forces his breathing to come down from the panicked pace that the memory had jerked him into. 

“I don’t have my things here. Go grab your clothes, kiss your man goodbye, and we’ll head to the Old Mormon Fort,” Arcade says down the hall. 

Rex presses against Boone’s chest and he responds my resting his forehead against his dog’s shoulder. He listens to Six’s feet returning to their room. 

“You’re awake?” she whispers. 

“Yeah.”

“Are you alright?” She crawls onto the bed and runs a hand over his cheek. “Boone?”

“I’m okay. Go with Arcade. Rex will keep me safe for you.” He lifts his head and leans into her touch. She presses her forehead to his and he closes his eyes. 

“I love you,” she breathes, her thumb running over his cheek. 

“I love you too. Now go.” He kisses her and feels her get back off the bed. He can hear her getting dressed in the dark as he returns to hugging Rex. 

_ Am I okay? _

The answer for both of them was hopefully yes. 


	5. Chapter 5

Boone sits up, his own scream an alarm clock. He’s covered in a cold sweat and his nightmare hangs off of him like rags. He reaches out for the water on the side table and ignores how badly he’s shaking. Rex whines. 

The bed is empty and Boone can’t hear anyone else, so they never came back after their midnight trek to Freeside. Part of him worried about it. If she’s there for a long time, does it mean something’s wrong? But he’s also glad no one was here to hear him scream. No one is here to watch him spiral down a hole of guilt and pain. 

She can wear the shirt all she wants, but Boone can see the scar on the back of her neck. It pokes up above the collar of the shirt. Even if her physical scars were gone, somehow erased from her skin, she still flinches. She’s still hurt. 

Boone sighs and gets up, trying to shove down his thoughts as he goes to the shower. He usually takes cold showers to wash off the dry heat of the desert, but he needs the comfort of the warm water. When he closes his eyes, he can see her standing in front of the projector. Instead of, “That’s strange…” He hears her scream his name when the gas had filled the bunker before she was dragged to the Sierra Madre. 

“Fuck!” Boone’s hands tighten into fists as his heart pounds. He’d tried to warn her. People get hurt when they’re near him. They always do. 

There’s one massive stain on the carpet in the living room from where Six had tried to kill him. They hadn’t been able to get it out and usually, Boone just ignored it. He can’t ignore it. His eyes get caught on it and his stomach flips. 

Six’s screams fill his ears and he flinches from the memory of her fists coming down on him. His heart pounds and all he can see is her fear and rage. He’s no longer standing, hand clutching the doorframe to stay in the present. He’s back there, lying on the floor, the stain being made as blood pours from his lips. 

“Craig?” Arcade calls. 

Boone can’t move. This is where Arcade comes in and drags her off of him. 

“Craig, look at me. You need to breathe.” His hand on his arm snaps him back to the doorway where his white-knuckled grip on the doorframe has only gotten tighter. Boone lets go of it and swallows down his harsh breaths. 

“Is she okay?” he asks, not meeting Arcade’s eyes. 

“She’s okay. She’s more okay than you right now by the looks of it. Sit down.” He’s in doctor mode, his snark missing. Boone shakes his head and backs out of the room. He can do this. His first impulse is to go to the kitchen and self medicate with some whiskey but he can’t go there. 

“You’re hyperventilating,” Arcade says. “Take a deep breath and h...” Arcade says again. Boone can’t focus on the rest of his words, his heart pounding too loudly in his ears. His chest is too tight and he’s not getting any air. He can hear his heart pounding in his ears as he stumbles backward into a wall. 

He squeezes his eyes shut and swallows hard. It’s just another bloodstain in another room with more shouting. Manny’s shouting over Boone’s. Manny prying the knife from Boone’s hand as his fingers go limp. Manny slapping him and telling him to stay awake. 

“No!” Boone yells. This kind of episode hasn’t happened in a long time. He’d been stupid to think he was better. He’d gotten comfortable. He’d let himself forget. 

“Rex,” Boone hears Arcade call. 

Boone slides to the floor, his head getting lighter and heart getting louder. His dog lays across his legs and pants. He can feel the thrumming of Rex’s heart against his thighs. He’s heavy and warm and Boone focuses on that as he covers his face with his hands and tries to slow his breathing. 

“I shouldn’t have taken her there,” Boone manages. Arcade kneels next to him and presses two fingers to his wrist without making Boone take his hands away from his face. 

“This isn’t your fault. She knows that. I shouldn’t have to try to convince you. If you hadn’t brought her there, she could have found out about it and brought you there and we’d be sitting right where we are now. Stay, boy.” The last bit, Boone isn’t sure if it’s directed at him or Rex. He assumes it’s him since Rex hasn’t moved since he laid down. 

Arcade comes back and wraps one of Boone’s hands around a glass of water. He moves as if he’s about to get up again but he hesitates. “If I sit here with you, you’re not going to punch me, right?” Arcade asks. Boone shakes his head slowly, more rolling his head against the wall than anything else. “When’s the last time that happened?”

“You’re not my doctor,” Boone says. It’s not exactly true, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. 

“I am, but I suppose we can sit in awkward silence instead.” 

“Okay.” He could go for some silence. He finishes the water and puts the glass on the floor next to him. 

“We really should talk about this.” He knew it couldn’t last long. 

“Does silence really upset you that much?” Boone asks through clenched teeth. 

“Hmm.” Arcade hums for a moment. “Yes. Come back to Old Mormon Fort with me. You can see Six and bring her home later. I ran some tests for her, but she won’t let anyone else near her.”

“Why is she still there if she’s fine?” 

“She fell asleep so I came to get you. She’s already on edge. She’ll probably do better if she wakes up with you there.” Boone is surprised to find he can’t hear his heart or feel it taking over his chest. His breathing has returned to something of a normal rhythm. All without him noticing. “Her new spine is advanced technology. I promised I wouldn’t tell Julie. She would want to study it and figure out everything about it. She can be a vulture. Don’t tell her I said that. I still have to work with her.”

“Aren’t the Followers supposed to be all free love and share the research?” If he was looking at Arcade, he might have narrowed his eyes accusingly, but his head is resting against the wall and his eyes are closed as he pets Rex slowly. 

“I don’t quite fit the mold. But you knew that.” Boone doesn’t answer. “Aside from the scars, Six is doing well. Whoever did the surgeries, Dr. Dala, Dr. Mobius, Dr. Steal-your-brain did a good job. She isn’t addicted to anything, so her autodoc must have cured her completely of that. She’s really going to be just fine. And she’s doing a hell of a lot better than when she came back last time.” 

“I know.” He can’t stop thinking about it. He can’t stop thinking about how he helped her get to both of those places and let her slip through his fingers. How he had been locked away in his dinosaur tower waiting for her return both times. How she was coming apart at the seams and then better than anyone expected. 

“Let’s go,” Arcade says, getting up. Boone follows him, scooping Rex off of his lap and grabbing his sniper before getting into the elevator. 

The walk through Freeside shouldn’t bother Boone as much as it does. He’s a bodyguard for fuck’s sake. Still, he hears the distant shots and keeps his jaw clenched and his eyes forward. He counts his steps and stares at the gate. The Wrangler crier is on the corner running her nonstop spiel of fulfillment. Someone shoots. A body falls. Boone flinches. 

He raises his sniper and takes out the asshole who’s got a lead pipe raised over his head as he runs at them. His finger squeezes the trigger and he shoots. His stomach lurches. Freeside is gone, the buildings that are all falling apart replaced with the mountains of Bitter Springs. Boone hears his orders and he doesn’t agree with them but he shoots again because he’s told to. 

“ _ Shoot everyone until you’re out of ammo! Do you understand me?”  _

Boone keeps shooting. His trigger begs him to stop, but he takes his shots. Bodies drop and he ignores the red that spills. He ignores the screams. 

“Stop!” Arcade grabs his arm. Boone sucks in a breath and stumbles backward. 

“I— I need to get the fuck out of here.” Boone wrenches his arm from Arcade. “It’s my fault they’re dead. It’s my fault she’s dead. And Six will die too.” 


	6. Chapter 6

Six wakes up and stretches. She’s used to waking up in different beds all the time so it doesn’t phase her when she sees that she’s in a bed at Old Mormon Fort. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but her tests had gone well and with the anxiety alleviated, she’d slipped off in the early hours. Sure, there were some residual bad feelings from her latest adventure, but after finding out she was physically okay and actually telling them a little of what had happened, she felt like she could handle it. It wasn’t all on her shoulders. 

“Morning,” she says, sitting up and looking over at Arcade. He’s writing something, his eyebrows drawn together in concentration. 

“Hey.” He’s distracted. “What’s up?” 

“What’s going on?” Outside of the tent sounds a little more busy than usual. Arcade’s hair looks like he’s been worrying over something. 

“Why would you think there’s something going on?” 

“You’re a terrible liar, Arcade.” Six gets up and looks out into the Fort. One tent has about three doctors that she can see. “Who’s in that tent?” 

“Some gunshot victims,” he says vaguely. “How are you feeling?” 

“Better.” Six takes a deep breath. “I’ve been weird since I got back. I need to apologize.” 

“You’ve been traumatized,” Arcade corrects her. She rolls her eyes. 

“In any case, I’m sorry.” She rubs the back of her neck and stops when she feels the raised scar under her fingertips. “I need to go talk to Boone.”

“About that!” Arcade gets up suddenly and stops her from leaving the tent. He glances at the tent with the gunshot victims before looking back at her. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“What?” Her blood runs cold as she looks at the tent filled with doctors. 

“I knew he had post-traumatic stress disorder, I just didn’t know how bad it could get. I got him calmed down before we started to come here, but something happened and I couldn’t get him to snap out of it. He just kept shooting.” 

She’d left him and she’d known something was off. She should have just dragged him here with her and Arcade but maybe that wasn’t an option either. “Where is he?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Did he say anything?” He could be anywhere and the wasteland is a big fucking place. 

“He did his whole attractive brooding speech. Not that I understood any of it. He’s the reason they’re dead, she’s dead, and he will be the reason you die… Or something like that.” 

Bitter Springs. 

Six pecks Arcade on the cheek and runs out of Old Mormon Fort before he can stop her again. 

It’s somewhat therapeutic to be out in the Mojave alone after Big Mountain. There aren’t any lobotomites or skeletons in their weird suits. They’re replaced by fiends and random assholes leftover from disintegrated factions or the ones who’ve simply lost their minds. No goggles or creepy scars. The only patient gown that exists is her own and that’s in the corner of a room in Novac. As far as she can see, there is nothing that is colored bright yellow. Nothing in the Mojave is brightly colored anymore. The signs for New Vegas are flashy and big, but nothing will ever be as bright yellow as those roboscorpions. There are also no cyberdogs. Not one. The only one is in a room at the 38 in New Vegas waiting for Arcade to come home from work because she was too nervous to bring her best boy with her. 

Six inhales the dry air and flexes her hand. She has her ballistic fist but she’d left her stealth suit at home. She is too happy to cling to Boone’s smell. After her first shower back at home, she’d swapped the shirt she’d stolen from him ages ago for the one he was wearing that day, soaking him up like the sun. When he’d taken off the shirt for her, he’d called after her, “That’s going on your tab!” 

“Haven’t seen anyone for a while,” Six mutters to herself, lonely without her stealth suit that she’d started calling MK. “Maybe the monsters got stealth suits too.” She sounds crazy whispering MK’s programmed lines to herself for comfort. 

The first time she’d put on that suit, she’d jumped a mile in the air when the voice first spoke. She was sure it was like all of the other voices. Malicious and vile. But MK was sassy and helpful and her only friend for over a week. It might have bothered her when MK auto-injected stimpacks, but by the time she’d assembled the suit, she was down to only having one at a time, picked up from random boxes right when she needed them.  _ Maybe you’d be better off with an autodoc suit. _

It’s unnerving walking in silence for so long. No voice booming over the land promising her demise and ordering robots and lobotomites alike to kill her on sight. 

She feels brainwashed. She feels like she spent a short time in an intense environment purely to fuck with her head. Too much had happened. Her time there didn’t outweigh her time in the Mojave, but somehow she was changed by her traumatic experiences. She was talking to herself and kitchen appliances. She was expecting the wrong kind of creatures to attack her. When she says home, she’s relieved when she pictures Boone. 

Six digs in her pocket and comes up with a picture that’s getting crumpled edges. Michael Angelo had given her a camera and she’d managed to get the best picture of Boone. She’d handed the rest of the pictures back to Michael, but one she kept. He’s crouched with his sniper raised expertly and his face calm. She runs her fingers over the creased corner to attempt to flatten it. 

That day had been a good one. They’d had some shelter from the searing heat with the wispy clouds that streaked the blue sky. They weren’t together yet, but it’s still one of the best days Six ever had with Boone. They had been on their way to Novac to take a picture of his dinosaur and they’d done nothing but pester each other and joke around. At one point, she’d missed her shot by accident when he’d tossed an empty bottle they’d found. 

_ “Let me aim that for you next time,” _ he’d laughed. She had immediately blushed, her heart lodging itself in her throat. She doesn’t remember her retort, only that her voice had been too high from her chest being so tight. And then he’d swung his sniper back so he could wrap his arms around her, his hands positioning hers on her shotgun. She didn’t need it. They both knew it. How she’d managed to convince herself that Boone didn’t like her that way is beyond her because it should have been obvious from the way his breath caught when she’d leaned into his touch. 

She shoves it back into her pocket. As far as she knows, Boone still doesn’t know that this picture even exists. 

Six finds him exactly where she expected to. He’s sitting on the ridge that he’d taken her to a long time ago to tell her about the massacre. He’d forgiven himself enough to stop waiting to die, but apparently there was a lingering piece. A piece she knew would always be there even if he was happier now. She climbs up the ridge, careful to avoid where she knows the ghosts that haunt him are still falling. 

“Hey,” she says as she sits down next to him. 

“Hey.” 

“Wanna talk about it?” she asks, leaning her shoulder against his. 

Boone exhales harshly through his nose, that odd laugh people do when they find something funny but not enough to actually smile. “It’s not really my thing.” She smiles and puts her head on his shoulder. He wraps an arm around her and pulls her a little closer. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too.” They’re quiet for a minute, frozen together as they stare out at the sunset. It would be romantic if it weren’t for the fact that they were both trying to figure out how to tell each other just how broken they are. “What happened?” 

“I took my girlfriend out for a date and she got kidnapped,” Boone says quietly. “I can’t protect you. Like I couldn’t protect her. Like I couldn’t protect them. Like I can’t protect myself.” 

“Hey.” She lifts her head from his shoulder and turns his chin so he’s looking at her. “You were following orders. Someone told me that you don’t come off of a tour of duty without regrets. Right?” His eyes soften behind his sunglasses so she keeps going. “Carla was sold and taken f—”

“And you keep getting taken, Six! Fuck!” He looks away from her again and shakes his head. “The first time someone could have detonated your fucking collar and I would have been waiting here not knowing where you were or if you were gone. This time some brain in a fucking jar could have taken your body? They took your fucking brain, Six. They took your heart!”

“I would have let them keep the heart if it didn’t belong to you. Wow, that’s the cheesiest shit I’ve ever said.” Boone snorts with an unexpected laugh and Six joins. It feels light for a moment. Like everything is okay and they aren’t sitting where they are. His eyes lock onto hers and she continues more seriously. “I talked them into leaving me alone so I could come back here. If they hadn’t listened, I was ready to fight them all to make it back here. I made it back both times. I’m a little worse for wear and I could use a hug, but I’m okay. Are you?” 

“Come here.” He pulls her into a hug and she smiles into his shoulder as he holds her. “I don’t know if I’m okay.”

“Okay.” 

“I can’t keep losing you. I can’t protect you.” His arms tighten around her and she wonders if he will ever let go. She hopes not. “I know you can protect yourself but you get taken from me and I’m right there. I still can’t do anything. I can’t even kill the bastards who do it. I just lose you and hope you make it out alive when I can’t find you.” 

“It’s not your fault.”

“You told me before that you’d gone to that movie screen and thought nothing of it. You kept walking. Nothing happened to you. But then you met me. This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t met me.” 

“If I hadn’t met you, I wouldn’t have had anyone to come back to after I blew up the Sierra Madre.” She’s surprised that she doesn’t flinch or choke on her words. “If I hadn’t met you, I still would have ended up in Big Mountain, but maybe I wouldn’t have fought so hard to get back here. Those are a lot of maybes and ifs. I  _ did _ meet you and I  _ did _ have someone to come home to. I don’t mean to make you pick up the pieces.”

“I will always pick up the pieces.” He kisses the side of her head and she relaxes a little. 

He lets go of her and she turns around in his arms so her back is against his chest and she’s sitting between his legs. Their fingers twine together and she wraps herself up in his arms again. 

“Why are we here?” she asks quietly after a few minutes pass and the sun finally starts to sink. 

“I forgave myself here once.” His thumb rubs over hers, his touch gentle even though his hands are rough. “I didn’t mean to leave you there.”

“I know. Arcade told me what happened.” She tries not to think about the tent filled with doctors and gunshot victims. “I shouldn’t have left you when I saw you panicking.” 

“You had to. You were panicking too.” 

“Yeah.” They’re both a little broken but somehow their pieces still manage to fit together. “I can take care of myself. I mean. Who took out a whole nest of radscorpions in the gulch?” 

“Me.” He huffs a laugh. 

“I killed a few,” she corrects herself, smiling. 

“You killed one and got distracted looting corpses.” He kisses her cheek as she laughs.

“Okay. Bad example.” She chews on her lip as she tries to think of something else, some other time that might ease his worries. 

“You lit me on fire with your incinerator once,” he points out. 

“It was one time and it was an  _ accident _ . I already apologized for that.” 

“Okay, but you still did it.” They’re sitting in the dark now, watching the stars come out one by one. “It was more than once.”

“We’re going to be alright, aren’t we?” She turns in his arms so she can look at him. She’s memorized every line of his face. She knows the curve of his brow and his high cheekbones. His full lips are always slightly downturned, a perpetual resting frown. She could never forget the cut of his jaw or the bend of his nose. This close, even in the dark, she can see the lines by his mouth from his rare laughs. The circles under his eyes that tell stories of trauma and sleepless nights. She already has it all stamped into her memory but still, her eyes take in everything. 

“Yeah.” He touches his forehead to hers and their eyes close, allowing themselves the quiet connection. “I love you,” he breathes. 

“I love you too.” 

“You say it’s not my fault, but I can’t do anything to help. I can’t follow you. It kills me.” He sounds wrecked. She’s never really thought about what happens when she’s gone. Not really. Time doesn’t stop. She knows he looks for her, but his heart breaks and his hope wilts. His mind gets plagued with self-blame and terrifying images from the past. She can’t follow him into his flashbacks to help him either. It’s just as helpless a feeling. 

“It isn’t your fault. It’s just another hazard of living.” 


	7. Chapter 7

The Brotherhood of Steel Safehouse looks pretty shitty from the outside. On the inside, it’s currently decorated to Boone’s liking. His and Six’s clothes are strewn everywhere, staying where they landed when they’d first arrived. No one else is here, but Six moved a footlocker in front of the door anyway. The bunk bed is narrow and doesn’t fit two in the way Boone would like, but Six is lying on top of him, her chin resting on his chest. 

“What if Mr. House was like Dr. Mobius or Father Elijah?” Six asks abruptly. Boone had been running his fingers over her bare back but stops, letting his hand lie flat against her lower back. 

“What?” 

“Why did no one know me?” She sits up a little and crawls up so she can look into his eyes. “No one here knows who I am at all. Benny blew me away and then…? And then I was saved and no one knew who I was at all. You didn’t know me. No one we’ve ever met knows who I am besides the courier that was supposed to be dead.”

“Where are you going with this?” 

“Maybe no one knows me because House took me too.” 

Boone’s heart stops. He swallows hard and wonders who is waiting on the other side of wherever she came from. Are they still waiting over a year later? Even if they’re waiting, her memories of them were erased by the bullet Benny lodged in her brain. Will that happen to him? Will she get taken again and forget? She had her whole fucking brain removed and she managed to remember him, but what if..? She could be ripped from his arms and brought back to where she came from and he would still feel as if she was taken from him. He belongs with her in his arms here in the Mojave wasteland, or New Vegas, or the mouth of a dinosaur in Novac. But what if this isn’t where she belongs? 

“Boone?” Her eyes search his so he closes them. “Talk to me.” 

“Do you want to go back?” 

She hums for a moment, thinking about it. His heart starts to crack that she even has to think about it, but it’s not fair for him to expect her immediate answer to be that no, she wants to stay here with him forever. 

“I don’t think I want to go back to the 38 yet. I know it’s home, but Arcade will take care of Rex until I can be okay with him again. I just need a few days.” Not what he was expecting. His eyes snap open and this time he’s searching her face. Her eyebrows are turned up a little in the middle with regret and he runs his thumb gently over it, watching her relax under his touch. 

“Okay.”

“Can I take you on a date?” she whispers into the pad of this thumb when it reaches her lips.

“Six…”

“Nothing bad will happen. We can go out to Lake Mead and go swimming or just sit by the water. Nothing bad. Nothing new like a movie.” She kisses each of his fingers to add to her argument. “You asked me on a date and I ruined it.”

“You didn’t ruin anything.” He says it more forcefully than he means to, but nothing that happened was her fault. She didn’t ask to get kidnapped for experimental surgeries and strange errands. 

“I want to go on a date with you.” She sighs and he cups her face so she has somewhere to rest her chin. “A day at the Lake and a night at our dinosaur before we take the long way home?” 

Boone nods. “Yeah.” She’s not even thinking about where she could be from or that House is probably just another Elijah, another Mobius, another motherfucker with nothing better to do than snatch people and use them, abuse them, torture them endlessly. She just wants to go on a date and try to move past being afraid of her dog. 

“Before that…” She kisses him and it isn’t an innocent peck. 

“Yes,” he agrees in a groan, his bottom lip between her teeth. 

“One moment, Paladin Sato!” Six calls as she throws Boone’s pants at him over her shoulder. She’s blushing and trying not to laugh which is only making it harder for Boone to stifle his own laughter. “Sorry, a footlocker fell in front of the door! One moment!” 

She hops into her own pants, backing up so Boone can clasp her bra for her as she pulls the belt tight. “Thank you,” she whispers before grabbing her shirt and yanking it on. Boone dressed less chaotically and much quicker. Military training does that, but it’s a stark contrast to her frenzy that exists next to him in this shack. 

Boone shoves the footlocker out of the way when Six has everything in place. When they open the door, Sato doesn’t look impressed. His eyes drag from Six to Boone and back. 

“So sorry,” Six says, clearly on the verge of laughter as she grabs Boone’s hand and pulls him out of the shack. 

Boone loves when she laughs. It fills the air and he breathes it in and lets it fill him up. He lets himself laugh too, her joy contagious. When the door is closed and they’ve walked far enough away, she stops walking and beams at him. 

“What?”

“You’re happy,” she says. 

He nods, mildly surprised that it’s the truth. It’s an understatement to say that the last two weeks have been rough. But he’s okay. Well, he’s going to be okay. He’s not having night terrors. He’s not having flashbacks. He’s rooted here with her. And she’s okay. Or going to be. They’re working on it. But that’s all they can do. “Yeah.” 

“Come on.” She pulls his hand and off they go, through the rocks, to find their way to Lake Mead to finally have a first date.   


The first time they’d been to this lake, Boone had spent the entire time arguing with her. She was going to put on some rebreather made from spare materials by some guy she’d helped get laid. Her whole plan relied on putting on the damn mask and swimming down to detonate the sunken plane for the Boomers. 

“You can’t be serious,” Boone had argued as they stood at the edge of the water. 

“Of course, I’m serious.” She’d been handing all of her things to him so she could go swimming. The shitty rebreather wasn’t on yet, waiting at her feet. She had handed him the beret and her sunglasses and that’s when it felt more real that she was going to go into that lake and die. 

“You are not going in that lake.”

“Who else is going to go get the lady in the water, Boone?” She took off her boots and grabbed her mask. 

“It’s a plane! She’s not a real person!” He had watched as she shoved the two explosives and detonator in her pockets.   
  
“I’m going.” She’d started walking away from him and into the water. Anxiety had coursed through him as he’d watched the water level rise on her legs as she walked.   
  
“Can you even swim, Six?” he’d called after her, refusing to move from his spot by her pack and her boots. He’d clutched her beret like it was the only thing keeping him alive.   
  
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.” Fuck. 

“What if you can’t?” She had to have heard his worry. He hadn’t been able to keep it out of his voice as the water reached her sternum.   
  
“Guess it’s a good thing you’re my lifeguard then, huh?” And then she pulled her rebreather on and dove in. 

“I’m not going in there after you!” He shouted at the water even though he was already tearing his boots off in case he had to do just that. By the time he was watching her go save the Lady in the Water, he had already come to terms with being helplessly in love with the wildest person he’d ever met. He’d already accepted that his heart belonged to her wherever she took it. And at that moment, it was at the bottom of a lake and he felt like he was drowning. 

When she’s reemerged, she looked victorious… and wet. The water poured off of her as she walked back up to him. She’d turned and pressed the button as she lifted the rebreather from her face. The water rippled and Boone had grabbed her arm and pulled her back. 

“We did it!” she’d cheered, turning and throwing her arms around him in a celebratory hug. Wet hugs shouldn’t be the best but that one was. 

Now, they sit right where she’d left him, returned to him, and hugged him that day. She drinks from their bottle of purified water while he opens a can of Pork ‘n’ Beans for lunch. She kicks her boots off and tosses her socks into them, wiggling her toes as she stretches out on the ancient concrete. 

“Lunch,” he says, passing her the can after taking a bite. 

“You spoil me.” She grins as she takes it. They pass the can back and forth every few bites. They’re not one of those couples that feeds each other. Carla liked to do that occasionally, but once she found out Boone didn’t like it, she’d stopped. 

Carla will always be Boone’s first wife. She will always be the one he was willing to die for. But her place in his dreams is often replaced with another. He hates that he’s starting to forget what she looked like when they were happy and what it sounded like when she sang. The last image of her is the one he wishes he could forget, but it’s seared into him, a scar on his mind and heart. When he sleeps, he dreams more of Six than anything. When the radio is on, sometimes she’ll sing along. When he closes his eyes, it’s her face he sees now. She drags him all over the Mojave. She gives him that look and he’ll do anything for her. She’s the one who dragged him out and made him forgive himself and leave behind his death wish. She’s the one he’s willing to live for. 

“What are you thinking about so seriously?” she asks. 

“Nothing.” 

“Going to come swimming with me?” She gets up and pulls her shirt off. How is he supposed to say no to that? He glances at the water and the refreshing chill it promises from the heat of the day.

“No.” She’ll call his bluff. 

“Take your clothes off and swim with me or I’m dragging you in fully clothed,” she threatens, dropping her pants. 

He gets up and pulls off his clothes in a hurry. She laughs and walks into the water. He watches her hips sway and tries not to focus on the new scars. He couldn’t if he wanted to. She’s gorgeous and breathtaking. He follows her into the water without hesitation. 

Once it gets too deep, they both dive into it. When they surface again, Six splashes him and ducks below the surface before he can splash her back. It happens two more times before he pulls her into his arms and attacks her with an onslaught of kisses, peppering her face and neck as she laughs and clings to him. 

When they had crawled out of the water, there had been vague intentions to dry off and get dressed so they could make it back to Novac before dark, but those were forgotten the moment she kissed him and pulled him down to the part of the runway that was still partially covered in water. It was forgotten when he kissed back and held her close. Ideas of leaving before dark were lost with any other kind of thoughts or words as their moans left them with one word each: Boone and Six. 

  
  



	8. Chapter 8

It’s three days of picking fights with geckos and cazadors for no reason other than to fight side by side and keep the wildlife at bay for the people of Novac. Boone dropped Six off at the clinic when she asked him to, goodbye kisses at the door. When he finally makes it back to New Vegas alone, he had expected to be chased right back out or shot down immediately. But the walk through Freeside isn’t as bad as Boone had expected. Freeside is the land of the heavily sedated and aggressively poor. No one seems to bat an eye when he and Six walk through. They’re used to the gun fights and stabbings. His PTSD-fueled shooting spree is just another Tuesday for them. He’s still beating himself up over it, his stomach turning with worry, but that’s as much a punishment as he’s going to get. 

Six is planning on staying at the clinic for a few days. She’s already acting more like herself, but she wanted an extra boost of help. He would never discourage her that. He walks up the light show steps of the 38 and walks in. There’s only three people who ever go into the 38: Six, Boone, and Arcade. 

He steps into the elevator and inserts his key for the Presidential Suite. Even though he lives here now, he’s never been to the Penthouse. The elevator pulls him upward and dings when the doors open. Rex comes leaping off of a couch in the living room and runs straight to Boone. 

“I was starting to think you two ran off and left me,” Arcade calls from the living room where he had probably been sitting with Rex. He walks into the main hall where Boone is kneeling in front of Rex and getting his face licked with an over-eager greeting. He looks around and his eyes become worried. “Where is she? Take me to the projector. I’ll look again.”

“She’s fine.” Boone has to stand up and grab Arcade’s shoulders to stop him from going into the elevator. “She’s at the clinic.”

“Why aren’t you?” Arcade takes a step back and arches an eyebrow. 

“Therapy is her thing. Not mine.” Boone pats his leg so Rex will follow as he turns and walks toward his bedroom. Unfortunately, it makes Arcade follow him too. Boone sighs. 

“You really should talk to someone, you know,” Arcade says unhelpfully. “Someone could get hurt. Oh, wait. They did. Have you even considered it?”

“Considering it,” Boone says, turning to face Arcade. “No.” 

“Is it the whole not trusting others thing? I can understand the not trusting others thing. Hell, I don’t trust anyone but Six and I was coerced into that. You could talk to me. I  _ am _ a doctor.” 

Boone laughs. He actually laughs at Arcade’s joke before he sees that he’s serious. He clears his throat awkwardly. “You’re not my doctor.” 

“We’ve been over this. I _am_ your doctor. I have a pretty small practice. It largely consists of two people and a mountain of research. I know what it’s like not wanting to talk when the faction you’re associated with are murderers. You can talk to me. I’m all ears.” 

“Fuck, this is really happening.” Boone rubs a hand over his face before walking past Arcade back into the hall so he can go grab a whiskey. “Wait. The Followers aren’t known for being murderers.” He looks back at Arcade and narrows his eyes. 

“Did I say murder? No. I think you should try the whole listening thing. It works wonders on your skin. Speaking of which—” 

“You want me to talk to you?” Boone asks. 

“Want is such a strong word. I think you need to talk and I have the suspicion that I’m the only one besides Six that you’ll open up to.” Boone pours two glasses of whiskey and hands Arcade one of them. “Oh, thanks.” 

“I don’t really do the whole talking thing,” Boone says, walking from the kitchen to the living room. He sits on the couch and takes a sip of whiskey. 

“I hadn’t noticed,” Arcade deadpans, leaning against the pool table that no one uses. Well, Boone and Six had used it once, but not for the intended purpose. 

“What am I supposed to say? That I did some shit I’m not proud of? Fuck off. We’re not doing this.” Boone accidentally downs the rest of his glass in one gulp and stares at the empty glass. 

“It’s just a conversation, Craig,” Arcade sighs. “It won’t kill you.” 

“Tell me why you called the Followers murderers and I’ll tell you,” Boone says, hoping Arcade will do no such thing so they can be done with this. 

“I wasn’t talking about the Followers of the Apocalypse. Your turn.” Arcade takes a sip of his whiskey and stares at Boone pointely. Fuck, this is really happening. 

“You know about Bitter Springs?” 

“No, not really.” Arcade waves his hand vaguely as he takes another sip. “Not really my area. I’d heard bits and pieces here and there, but never a full story.” 

Boone does not want to talk about this. The only person he’d ever talked to about what happened at Bitter Springs was Six. He hadn’t told Manny and he’d wanted to tell Carla, but he wanted to protect her from the truth more than anything. Boone shakes his head. 

“I need something to drink.” 

Arcade finishes his whiskey and takes Boone’s glass, walking away to go get rid of them or refill them. He returns only a moment later with the full bottle sticking out of his coat pocket and two full glasses in his hands. Boone takes his and raises it in thanks before taking a sip. 

“I was married once.” He takes another, bigger sip. It burns a little, but he ignores it. “Your turn.”

“That wasn’t the deal,” Arcade says, though he looks apologetic after what Boone just said. They’re both silent for a moment before Arcade matches Boone’s drinking and takes another sip. “My father died before I ever really got to know him. What happened to your wife?” 

“That wasn’t what I asked.” Boone is met with an indifferent shrug. Fine. “I killed her to save her from the Legion.” Both of them take a heavy sip and refill their glasses. “What happened to your dad?”  
  
“Well, technically he was part of the wrong crowd. Some good people. Wrong cause.” He’s almost drunk if he’s not there already. “I guess I was born into it. I didn’t choose it. What happened when you were shooting in Freeside?” 

“I was back at Bitter Springs.” Sip. 

“What happened at Bitter Springs?”

“No. It’s your turn. Who’s- who're the murderers?” They both drink and Arcade sighs. At first, it had been a tactic to get Arcade to shut up and leave him alone, but now he’s curious. Now, he wants answers. Now, Arcade is finishing his glass again and hopping up onto the edge of the pool table. 

“Some…” Arcade waves his hand as he pours some more. “People. Not important. Is it? In the grand scheme of things? We’re here to talk about  _ you _ .”

“Why are we doing this? We hate each other, remember?” Maybe they’ll pass out drunk before either of them talks about their past. 

“We used to. I’m not sure that’s the truth anymore.” Arcade hums. “Who’s turn is it?”

“Yours but you’re not talking.” Sip. 

“I don’t want to talk about this. I’ve hidden it all perfectly well. Six is the only one who knows about this and I was surprised I’d told her as much as I did.” Six is the only one who knows both of their stories and she keeps their secrets locked away. It’s just another thing he loves her for. “My parents made some poor decisions in what faction they allied themselves with and raised me in.” 

“My parents raise brahmin.” They both laugh way too hard at the not at all traumatic confession. His laughter dies in his throat when he thinks about them. He hasn’t spoken to them in years. The last letter he sent them was before Bitter Springs. He couldn’t bring himself to write to them after that. They probably thought he was dead. “We got the orders to shoot so we shot,” Boone finally says. Arcade’s smile falls and his eyebrows draw together. “We were shooting the wrong people.” 

“Oh.” 

Boone has lost track of how much whiskey he’s had but Arcade fills his glass without comment. “We fucked up. But the NCR doesn’t apologize.” He can’t tell if he’s slurring. He’s probably slurring. “Your turn.” 

“I was raised in the Enclave.” It’s a heavy sentence and Boone stares at him. He can’t imagine this snarky asshole ever having anything to do with the Enclave. 

“Oh.” He empties his glass and sets it down. “Fuck.” 

“Yeah.” Arcade lies back on the table and swings one of his legs. “Can I tell you something?” 

“...Yeah.” 

“I think I don’t hate you.” They both laugh again though Boone is pretty sure they’re wasted and both staring at the ceiling, his head tipped back over the arm of the couch. 

“I think I don’t hate you either,” Boone laughs. “Now shut up.” 

“Never. I like to talk. Talking’s my favorite. Well. No. But it could feasibly be my favorite. And it annoys you, so that’s another reason to do it forever. I don’t think I can keep this up, Craig.”

“My name is Boone.” 

“Shut up, Craig.” 

Boone wakes up on the floor. His skull might be splitting. He would groan but that would be so very very loud. Arcade does groan. And it is very  _ very _ loud. 

“Shhhhh!” Boone crumples back to the floor and covers his ears with his hands. 

“Stimpack,” Arcade murmurs. “Where are my fucking stimpacks?” 

“ _ Shhhh!”  _ Boone tries again. He feels Arcade grab his arm and inject the medicine. His head clears most of the way and he sits up. 

“You’re welcome,” Arcade says, getting up and grabbing their empty glasses and the empty whiskey bottle. “We didn’t talk last night.”

“We never talk,” Boone agrees. Arcade smiles a little and nods before leaving the room. 


	9. Chapter 9

Six gets home a few days later, the elevator chiming to announce her entrance in the afternoon. Arcade had been reading some Pre-War book on something boring and Boone had definitely not fallen asleep with Rex lying across his stomach. 

“Six is home,” Arcade says unnecessarily as Rex launches himself off of Boone to bolt for the door. 

“Sit!” Boone yells. Rex’s ass falls to the floor immediately, his entire body shaking with excitement. Boone makes it to the doorway and sees Six. His stomach fills with butterflies every time he sees her after a short separation. His heart pounds. The corner of his mouth pulls up in a small smile. “Six.” 

“My Boone,” she beams. He steps around Rex and hugs her tightly. “If I don’t say hi to Rex, he’s going to explode,” she whispers. Boone nods and lets go of her, leaving a kiss on her cheek. “Sorry, boy.” 

Six kneels down in front of Rex and pets him slowly. He waits, still vibrating and occasionally lapping at the air in front of her arm. She lets out a breath and smiles, her entire body rejoicing with relief. “Rex.” Her voice cracks and she throws her arms around him. His tail beats at the floor and wall, his body wiggling from side to side. “Good boy.” 

When the King had let Rex go with them to try to get him cured, Six had already been in love with Rex, but Rex had been the wary one. His condition left him with random aggressive outbursts and the King had said he mistrusted those in hats. Six was as unwilling to take off her beret as Boone was. He didn’t know that her insane speech skills worked on dogs as well as humans, but she talked to Rex and he growled only a little before he gave a small whimper and pressed against her. Boone had only watched and hoped the dog didn’t turn on them and that she wouldn’t get so attached to a temporary arrangement. 

“Feeling better?” Arcade asks from where he’s leaning in the doorway. 

“Much.” She lies down on the floor and Rex crawls on top of her which only makes her giggle. “I’m starving. What did you two do while I was gone?” 

Arcade and Boone make a point of not looking at each other. After talking about their traumatic backstories through the haze of alcohol, they had accidentally discovered that they’re friends. They attempted playing pool but Arcade was too focused on trying to find trick shots for efficiency while Boone was more strategic and technical. They ate meals together while Arcade talking the entire time and Boone begging him to, “Shut up. For the love of God, shut up.” They’d figured out that Arcade mumbles to himself while he reads while also finding that Boone can carry a conversation with one syllable for every sixteen words Arcade says. 

“Nothing.”

“He’s too broody and boring to do anything. What do you want for lunch? We have booze and steak,” Arcade offers. “It appears no one has been shopping in awhile. Also, we’re almost out of booze. Your boyfriend makes me turn to drink,” he says even though neither of them have had a drop since their big confession. 

“How about some _water_ ,” Six says, her eyebrows raised at both of them. “And some steak sounds great. We can have a picnic downstairs in the casino.” 

“Why the casino?” Arcade raises an eyebrow and Six shrugs. 

“I don’t want to go anywhere. Been away from home for too long. And I figure you two haven’t left this suite for days.” 

“He went to work,” Boone says as Arcade protests, “I went to work!”

She grins and looks between them accusingly. “You’re getting along, _aren’t you_?” 

“No!” They both yell. Fuck. 

“We are not friends. No. Six, stop it. Stop that look,” Arcade says, shaking his head. “No!” 

“You made a friend, Arcade!” she yells after him, chasing him out of the room. Arcade yelps and Boone tries not to smile as he goes into the kitchen to start working on the steaks. 

Arcade sits in the dealer seat while Boone and Six sit next to each other at a poker table. She’s done talking about Big Mountain, though she isn’t tight-lipped like she was before. She fills Arcade in on the fights she and Boone took part in, leaving out no gory details. She tells them a little bit about therapy and how she probably traumatized Dr. Usanagi. She probably wasn’t expecting a victim of brain, heart, and spine transplants post abduction, pre torture. 

“What did you two do while I was gone?” she presses, clearly far from dropping it. 

“What do you want us to say?” Arcade laughs. “That we got drunk, talked about our feelings, and had a sleepover in the lounge? I think not.” 

Six rolls her eyes and laughs.

Arcade grabs a card deck and starts flipping through the cards as he talks. Boone watches the cards and holds Six’s hand under the table, but tunes out the conversation. He’s telling her about how he doesn’t play caravan but has a deck because sometimes patients decide to pay with collectible cards rather than battle caps and he doesn’t mind. Okay, so he’s not totally tuned out. 

“Who might this be?” Arcade gasps. He turns the card around and hands it to Six. 

“Boone!” She holds it up and Boone looks over. Shit. 

“Uh—”

“It’s you and Manny!” She flips the card again so she can look at it. “You’re famous? My boyfriend is famous? Look at you all fancy in your NCR gear!”

“You do realize you’re idolized by most of the Mojave, right?” Arcade asks, but she ignores it, still gushing over the Two of Hearts. “If only he’d stayed in good graces. You could have been New Vegas’ very own celebrity couple. Disgusting. Truly.” 

“Do you have one?” 

“Uh… Yes. That’s not important.” 

“ _You_ have a card?” Boone interrupts. Arcade glares at him. 

“I don’t own it. That would bring narcissism to a whole new level that I’m not willing to achieve even to complete a deck that I’ll never use. Sadly, it will remain incomplete forever. If someone does happen to give me the Six of Spades, I might borrow Six’s incinerator just for the satisfaction of watching it burn. Plasma really doesn’t have the same… spark, does it?” 

“Six of Spades. Got it.” Six nods and Boone smirks. That man talks too much for his own good. 

Arcade goes back to work after their late lunch, giving them privacy while claiming to have a mountain of research waiting for him. Ed-E leaves with him as Boone and Six get into the elevator. 

“So… You and Arcade had a sleepover in the lounge, huh?” She looks over her shoulder at him and grins. Boone groans. “I knew it.” 

“What?”

“Nothing. I just knew it.” 

Six is curled up in Boone’s arms and he feels at home. The suite is dark and quiet, their door shut, New Vegas asleep. Six draws hearts into his skin with her finger. It feels impossible that this is the normal and that it wasn’t always. It feels somehow far away that she was ever missing. It feels like a lie that they weren’t always a couple. 

“You’re really okay?” Boone asks softly. 

“Yeah. As okay as I can be right now,” she answers. There are scars he can’t heal. She’s been taken twice, possibly three times. She’s been tortured and terrorized. But her brain and heart are back. “You?”

“I’ve forgiven myself. I’m working on the rest.” He wants to stop the flashbacks and the panic attacks that come with the memories, but talking about it and forgiving himself doesn’t fix everything. He still has the memories. He still has the experiences tied up in his knotted muscles. 

“If it happens again?” Six whispers, on the edge of sleep. 

“Then we’ll deal with it again,” he answers, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. 

Six sleeps through the night just as peacefully at home with him for the first time in awhile. Boone sleeps that night with no nightmares. here are no headaches, no heartaches. Her brain and heart are right where they belong. And that feels pretty okay. 

* * *

Open Tabs:

Boone - food, ten bottlecaps, a bullet, his own sunglasses, a bottle of purified water, one stimpack, and about 15 kisses from Six, Six's heart.

Six - a stimpack or three, ten bottlecaps, some scrap metal, a jug of dirty water, Boone’s sanity, Boone's shirt. 

Health Reports by Arcade Gannon  
Boone, Craig: PTSD, Depression, Sniper up his ass.

Six: PTSD, Severe anxiety, Insomnia (in remission), Amnesia from bullet wound (scars on brain), Spine Transplant, Increased immunity to poison and addictions, Nosey as hell. Cured Addictions: Sierra Madre Martini, Adrenaline, Steady. 


End file.
